


Of Heartbreak

by JanuaryVictim



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Heartbreak, M/M, POV Sam Wilson, POV Second Person, Sam Wilson Feels, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 18:55:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12018951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanuaryVictim/pseuds/JanuaryVictim
Summary: What went through Sam's mind when he saw Steve, the man he fell in love with, kiss Sharon.





	Of Heartbreak

**Author's Note:**

> Yes hello I'm here to make you sad, because I'm sad. Strongly recommend listening to an iconic song by IAMX called "Wildest Wind" for some extra heartache.

It’s not easy to admit when you are heartbroken. 

It’s one thing to complain to your friends about a disappointing movie from an actor you love, about not finding the flavour of ice cream you’d been craving at the store, about getting home too late to watch the baseball game. You’re heartbroken then, you let them know. “I’m so sad I could cry,” you say, casually, when you tell them the story of how you got fifteen minutes too late to your favourite restaurant, and couldn’t have your breakfast there. “I’m heartbroken,” you say, like it means nothing, when your friends tell you they hung out the weekend before but didn’t invite you because you were too busy with work. 

“I’m crushed,” you say, when your team loses and in turn you lose a bet. 

“I’m in so much pain,” you have joked, countless times, at whatever minor inconvenience you happen to come across. 

You are completely sure that you have never said these things and actually _meant_ them. 

And yet here you are. 

The shadow of the underpass shields you from the sunlight as you sit in the ridiculous car Steve found and decided to use. You knew where you were heading. You knew who you were meeting. And you _knew it,_ you think, since you bumped Steve’s arm and he looked up to see Sharon standing under the stained glass windows and the ornate dome of the church, surrounded by white flowers. You could practically hear Steve’s heart skipping a beat, then, while yours sank further into your chest. 

“Can you move your seat up?” comes Bucky’s voice from behind you.

“No.”

From your seat, you watch Steve and Sharon’s lips move in words you don’t care to try to decipher. Then in coy smiles. Then in a kiss. 

You see Steve stepping closer to her, the sudden boldness in the way he moves, and you see him touch her. You see her fingers on the back of his neck, and the way their bodies fit together. You see his hand on her waist. You imagine their foreheads touching, his breath tickling her nose, you imagine a smaller smile—until you don’t have to anymore. There is Sharon smiling, and there is Steve smiling. Looking straight at you, and smiling. Happy. 

Happier than you’ve seen him in almost a year. Maybe he was smiling like this the night you played pool at Stark’s party, when you made him laugh. Maybe he _was_ happy then, with you. Maybe you were just seeing what you wanted to see. 

This, though, is unequivocally a beaming smile. A radiant smile, in spite of everything that’s happening around you, in spite of what’s about to happen. 

So, of course you smile back. Because sometimes that’s easier.

Now, you have never liked to bleed on people. Perhaps arrogantly, you have fancied yourself more than capable of dealing with certain things on your own. Not everything, of course. A man does need help sometimes, and though it took you way too long to admit it, and a little longer to do it, you looked for it and you found it. You’ve worked through your guilt and your shame and your trauma. It hasn’t been an easy road, or a straight road; it’s been ugly, and it’s been bumpy, it’s been full of anger, confusion, setbacks, tears, frustration, pain—but you’ve made your way through it all the best you could. You like to think you’re in a better place now than you were when you came back; you rarely wake up from nightmares, you rarely _have_ nightmares now, and some days it even feels like the memories are just that, memories, harmless blurs and echoes—of Riley’s laughter, of gunshots, of your own screams. You worked hard for your routine, for your morning jogs, for your coffee shop trips, for your weekly calls to your family, and for keeping your job. For your functionality. For your self-sufficiency. Those times you felt like giving up, you pushed yourself to get out of bed and face the music. Every single time. You forced yourself to accept the fact that you’re not a super human and made yourself talk to the people closest to you about your regrets, and about your guilt, and about your pain, until the burden was lighter. So, you like to think you have it together. Or had it. 

You don’t regret following Steve. You don’t even regret _falling_ for Steve. It’s just a different kind of struggle. It’s the kind you prefer to keep to yourself. The best you can. 

Natasha caught you off-guard one morning, of course, because she’s the kind of woman who notices everything. You had been talking to Steve, nothing out of the ordinary, except he had just rolled out of bed, and his hair was a mess, and his eyes looked small and sleepy. And your heart was tender. 

Natasha waited until Steve was gone to sit next to you, sipping her coffee and looking at the other side of the room, at nothing in particular. 

“Are you _ever_ gonna tell Rogers?” she had asked, practically whispering, in that smart-ass tone of hers that let you know she knew more than she led on (and couldn’t wait to let you know she knew). 

“What?”

“You’re smitten, Sam. It’s so obvious,” she said, and your heart caught in your throat. And she must have sensed it, or seen it, or maybe heard the way your heart started to beat like it wanted to burst out of your chest. She turned to look at you, and she smiled. “I’m not gonna tell him or anything, I’m not a snitch. It just…” she cocked her head to the side, “It might not be the best idea.”

You knew exactly what she meant. 

You were happy to have her, to talk to her when things got rough. You trusted her. 

But you let her think it was just a silly crush, and kept the extent of it to yourself. Just like you will, this time. 

You have no intention of opening up to anyone about the way you’ve just felt your heart crack and shatter into a thousand pieces, or how it felt like someone punched the breath out of you. That’s only for you to feel, and it’s only for you to carry. You knew it was coming, anyway, and you’re not surprised. You are sure you won’t open up to someone about all those things you felt and all those things you had imagined, before—about the way you sometimes stared so long at Steve’s lips when he spoke that you lost the plot of what he was saying, the way your heart fluttered every time he lay his hand on your shoulder, and how it burst every time he smiled at you. The way his voice makes you weak in the knees. How he feels like home, now. All those times you’ve fantasised, in the safety and privacy of your bed, about what his lips must taste and feel like, about what it would feel to have his arms around you and his breathing and his heartbeat lulling you to sleep—all those times you will take to your grave. You will keep quiet about the way you have, naively, maybe even stupidly, fantasised about telling Steve that you love him. That you’ve been in love with him for a while. That you’ve felt, sometimes, as though you could spend the rest of your life with him, not just as ass-kicking partners. That maybe, just maybe, you have wished he’d be the one to grow old together with you. That you have considered telling him as much dozens of times in the past, but the timing just never felt right. There was always a lead on Bucky, a fight; somewhere to be, someone to go after; there was always training, and meetings, and people asking Steve for a selfie and an autograph—then, suddenly, people asking the same of you. It just never felt right. You wanted to take your time. You wanted it to be perfect. 

It’s too late now, you know, because as Steve opens the door and slides into the car, you can see that he can’t stop smiling. He’s pressing his chin to his chest in that way he does when he’s flustered, and his face and his neck and even his arms are pink, and there’s joy in his blue eyes. 

So you do what you’re used to doing. 

It hurts to smile, but you do it. It hurts to touch him, but you poke him in the ribs with your elbow. It hurts to speak, but you openly tease him about it. 

You tell yourself you want to lighten the mood, seeing as you’re heading somewhere for a fight. The truth is that you need to do this for your own sake. You need to be selfish now—you owe it to yourself. You need to smile to keep your eyes dry, and you need to joke and tease him to keep your voice from cracking, and you need to put up a front of normalcy and casual friendliness to keep your heart from breaking any more, because the pain radiating from your chest is nearly unbearable. You need to pretend that everything is all right, and that nothing is broken inside you, because the smallest fault in your façade would lead to a flood. You need to build stronger walls than you’ve had. 

You love Steve. You truly, deeply love Steve. You love him when you can hear him snoring through the wall and you love him when his stubbornness drives you crazy and you feel like screaming. Even when you can’t stand him, you love him. You love him when he smiles, and when he takes out all his frustrations on a punching bag. You love him when he lays his hand on your shoulder and asks if you’re all right, when he looks at you with a lopsided smirk, when he calls on you for help and comes to you the second you need him. You love Steve, truly, and deeply, and helplessly, and so you want him to be happy. 

You want to be the bigger person and tell yourself that you want him happy, even if that means having to see him be happy with someone else. But the truth now, as you’re driving and joking in the car, is that you would much rather step away, be alone, heal alone. But it’s not like you to leave Steve hanging, not when he’s counting on you. This isn’t the right time. Focus on the fight, focus on surviving. Focus on saving the world. There’s much bigger things at stake, and your broken heart will have to wait. 

You choose to tell yourself that you’ll know how to step aside, later, and keep your distance, and quiet down the voice in your head that wants to scream your love for the sake of his friendship and your dignity, until, finally, months or years from now, the voice, and the love, and the hopes, die down. You choose to remind yourself that you’re important to Steve, that it’s your opinion he wants and listens to, that he values you, that he’s proven time and time again that he wants you by his side, that he would trust you with his life—already has. You can’t let him down now. You can’t let a _friend_ down now. 

You choose to tell yourself that you will get past all this, because Steve loves you too—just not the way you would like. But you’ll survive. Because that’s what you do. That’s what you’ve taught yourself to do.

After a while, his laughter and your jokes die down, and he keeps driving the car heading towards the airport. It’s a sunny day, the sky is clear, and beautiful, and blue, and you have to look away from it. You focus on your hands, and there is silence around you. Before you can control it, really, you let out a deep sigh that possibly makes Steve think you’re nervous about this fight. Reassuringly, he gives your shoulder a squeeze right after he parks the car, and when you look at him, he’s smiling. So you smile back. Even though it hurts. 

“We’ll be okay, Sam,” he says in his soothing voice, unaware of how hearing it right now is close to killing you. “We’ll get through this.”

You nod. 

For a brief moment before stepping out of the car, you convince yourself that, in spite of how it feels when you replay the kiss in your mind, this isn’t the end of the world for you. That it isn’t even the end of your friendship with Steve. You can feel your heart pounding inside your ribcage, anxious and wounded, and still you manage to convince yourself that you will get through this fight together, that you will work together, and that one day, soon enough, the blue in the sky won’t make your heart ache with what could have been.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feel free to comment and also to come yell at me about Sam Wilson on tumblr @gothlumberjack !


End file.
